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Life is unfair, get over it.

Don’t you hate it when everything that can go wrong – does, and looking back you seem to think that it’s just you with whom things are going wrong? At the very least it seems like you are always part of the ‘unlucky group’.

Do you find yourself asking ‘Why is life always unfair to me? Why does a colleague seem to have everything and excel in what he does, when he is putting in the same efforts as me? Why does the world work this way?’

Let me assure you, you are not alone. Everyone goes through such situations including me. I’m sharing some thoughts which have helped me identify the lows in life as valleys, understand them to cope with them and work towards the peaks of my life.

I hope this post helps you understand and deal with such situation in your life.

God cannot be fair to 7.5 billion people all the time.

From the moment we were born it has been constantly hammered in our minds that God, the almighty is fair to good people and their good deeds. So be nice and you will always get what you deserve. It takes a lot of time and usually few spurts of painful periods to shatter your inhibitions to the idea that ‘life is unfair’. If God had time (and a way) to deal with 7.5 billion people individually then there would be no poverty or terrorism.

You are not entitled to anything.

Almost all the disappointments in life situations are because we tend to think that ‘we deserved it’. It might be the promotion that went to your colleague or the hike that you did not get. Let me tell you very clearly that you don’t deserve anything in life, you don’t even deserve the opportunities that other people seem to get so easily.Many people work their way in life to success by creating opportunities that didn’t seem to exist. If at all, you are entitled to anything, then its just ‘one life’ that god gave you. I say this because I am pretty sure that you are definitely doing better than a 5 year old black kid that is dying from starvation in the jungles of Uganda, stuck in a war.There are no free lunches in life. You will always have to work to earn your life. While doing that ‘you will see failure‘. Keep yourself prepared for failures, after you have given your best as winners do.

Do not ‘Ruminate’.

Most of the times we get stuck in an endless loop. Whenever something bad happens, we keep on playing the incidents over and over again in our minds. The trick here is to divert your mind. It is important not to dwell in your mistakes but learn from them. There will always be obstacles in life. Its just that the obstacles present themselves in different forms to different people. Those who focus on solving the problems or working around the obstacles are the ones that become successful.

Negativity leads you nowhere.

I am quite sure none of us have ever seen anybody achieve anything in life by being pessimistic about it. To overcome pessimism, I always ask people what is the worst that can happen? Prepare yourself for the worst and then just launch yourself into action.

Find your support group.

No matter what your views are on life being unfair I absolutely recommend having a support group of friends and family. This group keeps you in check and helps you cope with reality.

Usually while looking for a support group, you are most likely to connect with those people whose advice resonates with your negative beliefs. You should fight your desire to be with them and try to stay away as much as possible. Identify and eliminate negative people. Mind you, it’s very easy to find comfort in people who would agree with your analysis of the situation but difficult to talk to people who are rational and have a constructive approach or a solution oriented approach to your situation(s).

Analyse the situation ‘once’ from outside the bubble.

What usually helps over time is to zoom-out of the situation, put yourself in other people’s shoes and try to identify the root cause of why things happened the way they did.

Try to identify if there is a something that you could have done to solve or avoid the problem. Focus on doing that the next time and move on. If there is nothing that you can do then no point in wasting any more time.

Everybody shines in their bright spots, learn to find them and stay around them.

Most of the successful people that we see have found what their bright spots are, i.e. the areas and things that they are really good at. Everybody has them. It just takes time for some to discover them.Once you know what your bright spots are, you just need to focus on being around them and just get by the rest. You still should improve on your shortcomings but true excellence will come from staying around those bright spot.

Keep Moving forward.

To quote the great Martin Luther King Jr.,

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”

People find success and the bright spots of their intelligence in different forms and at different times in life. It is important to just focus on celebrating small wins and spreading the love in your journey.

I think what I am trying to say here is that life happens to everyone, its just that the successful people have a greater level of acceptance to the harsh facts. They are the ones who have found the mental maturity to deal with situations without finding blame in situations and people. You could be successful or more importantly happy, if you accept your situation, work towards coming out of it and celebrate small wins!